Marijuana and Your Brain

by Alex BalkAugust 18, 2011

Good news, potheads: marijuana makes you happy (and hungry), but not stupid: “So here’s the very un-D.A.R.E. takeaway: heavy marijuana use doesn’t seem to cause any sort of lasting brain damage. All the negative side-effects are relatively temporary. (But those side-effects are real, so don’t try to study, drive or play chess while high. You really will perform much worse on most tasks.) Furthermore, the sort of anxiolytic giddiness triggered by THC comes with its own unexpected benefits, which is probably why humans have been self-medicating with cannabis for thousands of years.”